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WhatsApp parent Meta has been sued for allegedly making false claims about the privacy and security offered to users of the popular messaging app.
The lawsuit was filed on Friday, January 23, by an international group of plaintiffs in a US district court in San Francisco. The group includes plaintiffs from Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa, according to a report by Bloomberg.
It has alleged that Meta and WhatsApp “store, analyse, and can access virtually all of WhatsApp users’ purportedly ‘private’ communications.” It has further accused the social media giant of storing the substance of users’ chat logs on WhatsApp, which can allegedly be accessed by employees.
The lawsuit has cited anonymous whistleblowers as having helped bring this information to light. Lawyers for the plaintiffs have reportedly urged the court to certify the lawsuit as a class-action suit.
End-to-end encryption is a central part of WhatsApp, which has repeatedly claimed that the messages, photos, videos, and phone calls made through the app are only accessible to the sender and recipient, and not the company itself, due to the level of encryption. WhatsApp as well as Meta’s Facebook Messenger use the Signal Protocol.
Encrypted chat on WhatsApp is turned on for all users by default, with the in-app messaging stating that “only people in this chat can read, listen to, or share” the messages. In its response, Meta dismissed the lawsuit as “frivolous” and said that the company “will pursue sanctions against plaintiffs’ counsel.”
“Any claim that people’s WhatsApp messages are not encrypted is categorically false and absurd. WhatsApp has been end-to-end encrypted using the Signal protocol for a decade. This lawsuit is a frivolous work of fiction,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone was quoted as saying by Bloomberg.
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What is encryption?
Encryption is a way of protecting data from unauthorised access or tampering. It works by transforming the data into a secret code that only the intended recipient can decipher. This comes in useful for various cases, such as securing online communications, storing sensitive information, and verifying digital identities.
There are two main types of encryption: symmetric and asymmetric. Symmetric encryption uses the same key to encrypt and decrypt the data, while asymmetric encryption uses a pair of keys: one public and one private. The public key can be shared with anyone, but the private key must be kept secret.
End-to-end encryption (E2EE) means that the protection extends to data as it’s transferred between locations – which is crucial wherever there’s a rapid exchange of information, like in WhatsApp.
However, encrypted apps like WhatsApp are only as secure as the security of a device. Encrypted messages can be leaked if an attacker gains access to an unlocked device, installs spyware, or tricks a user into linking their account to a malicious device. In December 2025, the Indian government issued a directive requiring popular online messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram to implement continuous SIM-binding and impose time limits on companion web instances, as an anti-cyber fraud measure.
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